The Roads to Madness: The SenZar Evolution, #2

By Todd King

Dave Newton and Todd King present: 
THE SENZAR EVOLUTION - BOOK TWO: THE ROADS TO MADNESS BY TODD KING
In this second book of The SenZar Evolution, we witness the questing of the Seven Stars, the legendary heroes of SenZar, who cross the globe in search of the Krystallstaff, the Soulsword, Thrumble, Tark, and several other unique artifacts of theirs which survived their forced journey through the Dream Barrier from SenZar to Earth. They must regain all of their former power and abilities before they dare to confront Lord Valthrustra, who seeks to thwart them at every turn along their path. The Triad, three of Lord Valthrustra's most powerful minions, unleash their own power to bring down the Stars. Through it all, Tatternorn struggles with the madness inflicted upon him due to his bond with Skurge, in their shared hell: The Pact of the Impossible Blade.   

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anshadar, LLC
• Release date: Apr 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985200317

Book preview

Graphic Design: Dave Newton

Cover Art: Faith Newton

Edited By: Dave Newton, Todd King, & The Brüne

SenZar Created By: Todd King, The Brüne & Joseph Giacone

Original Copyrights:

The Seven Stars © 1994 by Todd King. Book I of The Saga of the Seven Stars.

SenZar © 1994, 1996 by Nova Eth Publishing, Inc.

The Saga of the Seven Stars © 1998 by Nova Eth Publishing, Inc. First Printing. All rights reserved.

VoidSpawn © 1998 by Nova Eth Publishing, Inc. First Printing. All rights reserved.

The Roads to Madness – Book II of the SenZar Evolution ©, The Seven Stars ©, SenZar ©, The Saga of the Seven Stars ©, and VoidSpawn © are copyrights of Anshadar LLC. Visit www.anshadar.com for more information.

PREFACE 

Remaining true to its 1990s Terran Timeline, The Roads to Madness – Book II of The SenZar Evolution is now up, batting second in a veritable Murderer’s Row of heavy-hitting Sci-Fantasy novels.

Again, if you’re of the discerning sort, you’ll pick up on some themes, characters, and scenarios that we created in SenZar which have made it into the public domain, pop culture, and Zeitgeist since the early 1990s. We did not edit out, augment, or bring up-to-date the original content, and you might be shocked to see what we have shaped on Terra. In the preface of the SenZar sourcebook, we predicted that we were going to shape the face of gaming, and we certainly did. Both on the tabletop, and in the virtual world. And, yes, the Trump comment in this book is original, from the early 1990s. Prescient, as always. 

In this second book of The SenZar Evolution, we witness the questing of the Seven Stars, the legendary heroes of SenZar, who cross the globe in search of the Krystallstaff, the Soulsword, Thrumble, Tark, and several other unique artifacts of theirs which survived their forced journey through the Dream Barrier from SenZar to Earth. They must regain all of their former power and abilities before they dare to confront Lord Valthrustra, who seeks to thwart them at every turn along their path. The Triad, three of Lord Valthrustra’s most powerful minions, unleash their own power to bring down the Stars. Through it all, Tatternorn struggles with the madness inflicted upon him due to his bond with Skurge, in their shared hell: The Pact of the Impossible Blade.  

Enjoy the trip, my fellow travelers. It’s a doozy.

INTRODUCTION

WHO ARE THE SEVEN STARS?

Mad Sam Sprunge, Luckster , Master Rogue, and living creation of Maelstromm the Mad. Tal'N Hawkwind, Master of Shy'R, and Prince of Petra. Rhiannazaar, the four-armed Azaar warrior, bearer of Tark. Guthal Dirge, proud Khazak and forsaken heir to the throne of the Kaza-Ka. Silverdancer, daughter of the Thin Man, Mistress of Assassins, wielder of the Soulsword. Sigil Talisman, Archimage of Krystallmyst and loyal servant of the Dragon. Tatternorn VoidSpawn, Spellsinger and living embodiment of the Pact of the Impossible Blade, Skurge.

The greatest champions of SenZar who do what they do best: Kill in the name of the Cause. In final battle with Lord Valthrustra on SenZar, they die while in the midst of The Dragon’s Breath, only to have their screaming souls blasted through the Dream Barrier to be reborn on Terra at behest of the Dragon. In this new world they must integrate their new Terran souls with their SenZar souls in order to become realized as Anshadar, and thus to seek out and destroy Lord Valthrustra, who has designs of conquering the magick-blind world of Terra and its sleeping Dragon in order to achieve his ultimate destiny of becoming All That All Which Is, and All That All Which Binds.

Too bad the Stars aren't exactly the heroes that the legends of SenZar described. They've grown not only in power, but also in hatred as well. The Dragon's Game will never be the same again.

Death can do that to a soul.

Heard joke once:

Man goes to doctor. Says he’s depressed.

Says life seems harsh and cruel.

Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.

Doctor says Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.

Man bursts into tears. Says But, doctor...

...I am Pagliacci.

Alan Moore —Rorschach’s Journal—The Watchmen

CHAPTER 1: Most Of This Is Memory Now

"Y ou’re next! You’re next!"

Shut up, Skurge! I snarled under my breath.

Simpering, out of tune Bard!

Skurge.

Why don’t you just sheath me in your precious Silverdancer? Maybe I’ll shut up then, Tatternorn! Or is your name still ‘Logan’? Ha! I can see that you still don’t know! You don’t even know who you are anymore, do you, you addled simpleton? BWAA-HAA-HAA!

I was trying my absolute friggin’ best to ignore Skurge’s incessant mental torture, but nothing I was doing—nothing!—seemed to do a damned bit of good. I mean, I just wished that the cantankerous Shadar fiend would just shut the hell up for just a minute or two inside my head and let me think just one solo thought without his constant, mocking, fiendish laughter triggering one migraine after another in my oatmeal brain.  

Ask, and ye shall receive?

As if.

Wilford Brimley wants your brain to star in his next oatmeal commercial! Skurge mocked obscenely, nearly triggering an aneurysm in my muddled brain as he sowed some more Shadar Oats of Despair. Remember, fool: ‘It’s the right thing to do!’ Heh heh heh heh...

Here we—we meaning The Seven Stars, of course; not we as in me and my sadistic Shadar mental parasite—were, about to leap into the biggest bonfire of doom on Earth, and Skurge was having an absolute field day poking fun at me. The foul, mind-blasting cretin, mentally leering on and on like some demented, emotionally disturbed child. To top it all off, like topping off a Sundae with a worm-infested cherry, we were in one hell of an unfortunate leadership crisis: Sigil Talisman, the Seven Stars’ Archimage/puppet master, was down and out. Down and out, and definitely not in Beverly Hills.

After Sigil’s oh so timely collapse from the soul-consuming effects of The Weird that he had placed on us to reintegrate us with our former selves, or some hocus pocus BS like that, the burden of responsibility had fallen squarely on my spellsinging shoulders to lead our wild bunch of Loons. After all, I was, by all accounts, The Leader of the Seven Stars by default when Sigil, our illustrious, conniving mentor, was down and out.

The Leader.

Right. 

That’s where our current crisis came in: Mr. Fearless Leader’s once mighty brain was now just so much watered-down oatmeal. And Mr. Fearless Leader’s Oatmeal Brain just wished that it could remember what the hell it had used to do in circumstances such as this. You know, grab a little bit of that old Bardic Confidence and turn it into something useful. Something useful—like a brain, for instance—instead of the lukewarm breakfast food in my skull that was trying to pass itself off as something sane and sentient.

Loser.

Piss off, you big bizarre can opener! I raged aloud, shaking the massive Shadar steel blade in my hands as if I could silence it by main force. This highly unnatural act of cursing and blade waggling drew some concerned stares from my worried companions, who were probably wondering if—I mean, when—I had somehow managed to go off the deep end while no one was looking.  

You okay, Tat? Sammy asked, cocking his head to one side like a curious puppy. The look on my face must have spoken volumes, for he instantly added, If you’re not okay, though, then I believe the delegation of power shifts from you... to me!

Yeah, right, Sammy! Tal’N jibed. And next it goes to Zaar, and then the two of you have us robbing every bank in the parish just for kicks. Right?

I was still staring hard at Sammy. From the look on my roommate’s wide-eyed face, he was ignoring Tal’N’s tirade and sizing me up for one of those buckle-down white overcoats of which only Harry Houdini could fully appreciate the fit.

Yes, Sammy—guys—I’m okay, I lied, rumbling just a bit more at Skurge under my breath. It’s just this constant pain in the ass, Skurge, who’s giving me an Excedrin headache—

—this big? Ha! No pathetic mortal remedy can aid you now, Spellsinger!

—with... with all of his telepathic backbiting and snide little Shadar commentaries. I shook the big black blade at Sammy for emphasis, which caused him to grimace severely. That’s all.

Well, why don’t you just tell him to shut up? Samantha volunteered.

Whaddya think I’ve been try—

No! Like you used to do when he got out of hand back on SenZar. Just command him to shut the hell up!

Samantha sauntered up to me, her vast disapproval of the Shadar fiend and his darkling ways etched upon her Goddess of the Night face. Her green eyes flickered and narrowed in her unabashed contempt of the blade. She reached out and traced a long finger down my free arm. It was all that I could do to block out Skurge’s mental croaking and damnable sexual innuendo. His dark Shadar mind was almost as loathsome and perverted as Sammy’s. Almost. Well, actually not even close, I had to admit.

Okay, I said, eager in my desperation for any healing advice; especially advice from my partner in the Great Game Called Love. Here goes everything, I said halfheartedly, holding the blade aloft for all to see. Deeply ingrained Bardic Tradition, you know: All eyes had to be on me before I could put my foot in my mouth. Right! I said confidently, in the best of Python tradition. Skurge! I commaaaaand thee, SHUT UP!

And, just like that, the croaking bullfrog basso of Skurge died out with no fuss or bother. Just like turning a light switch off and watching the light fade away in an instant. Cool, that.

Well, what do you know! 

The great black blade was dim once again, as it had been during our van ride back to Samantha’s house, with nary an iota of energy tracing about on its surface. Muffled applause rang in my ears for a very brief moment as my friends let me know how much they cared. What a crew.

If you need any more help, just let me know, Samantha said blithely, striding off like a predatory cat into the hallway.

Where are you going? I asked her, already halfway to the hallway myself. Not that the hallway was such an overwhelming attraction. It just led to the nearest bathroom in the Teale House, and that’s where the Nuprin was.

To pack a couple of edibles for the road trip, she replied over her shoulder as she made her way down the hall toward the kitchen. Why else would I be heading to the kitchen? To try to sneak a call to Domino’s? The tone of her voice grew lilting and musical as she put more heart into her words. The softly accented inflection of her words grew somewhat more familiar, while at the same time sounding more foreign—not quite what you could call an accent, though. Not yet. Just the confusing dual-life paradox of rebirth. Just a little something different from what I had come to know and love from my Sharer of Soul Secrets. Chill out and leave me alone for a while, Tat. Okay? I’m not helpless anymore, you know?

Stopping at the edge of the hall door, I watched Samantha saunter into the darker recesses of the hallway where, earlier this terrible evening, we had lived through an electric blue light show of the soul. I had some idea of what was going through her head as she walked down the unlighted hallway; past that very spot where she had earlier collapsed into herself and screamed bloody murder, hating me in that damning moment for what I had forced her mortal eyes to see.

You forced me to force you... Ahh, do you remember? I sang inside my head, quoting some Queensrÿche, knowing that her Sidhe senses would catch my words.

Turning to face me, Samantha nodded once, smiling serenely. And, in the almost magickal way that lovers know unsaid things of one another, I knew at once that she had heard my unspoken words and had forgiven me. Or, at least, I hoped like hell that she had forgiven me.

But now, hopefully, the rules of the Dragon’s Game had changed. I now knew beyond shadow of doubt that such mundane, low Order magicks held absolutely nothing for the newly reborn Samantha Silverdancer to fear. No mere dancing blue lights in the shadows of dark hallways could ever make the daughter of the Thin Man, the former Master of Assassins of Zengara, the Forever City, balk in mortal terror. No, now she would probably laugh like the cold, practiced artiste that she was, then ask me to make more of the little shiny flitting blue sparks—just so that she could see my eyes more clearly before she poked them out.

It was undeniably true: The woman that I loved was a full-fledged Silverdancer—a mystically trained Assassin. And the man that she professed to love was possessed by a satanic sword. Consider that deeply, and then imagine how interesting our lovers’ squabbles could be, not to mention our love.

Considering this deeply myself, I turned reluctantly and made my wistful way over to where the remainder of my companions stood waiting in the den, eager to finally get the show on the road.  

Now, libido and love thoughts aside, it was powwow time. 

Logistics was Tal’N’s department, given his ample SEAL and Shy’R Warrior training. And what he came up with was simple enough, though, given the innumerable possibilities:

First, we had to plan our trip to Los Alamos.

Now that took some deep thinking! 

This so-called planning was easy enough after but one mere road atlas consultation and about ten seconds of deep, calculating thought from Sammy and Guthal, the two Monsters of Math. Without benefit of Sammy’s laptop computer in the van, the two monsters actually approximated the entire trip with less than a one percent error. At least that’s what they assured us after another moment or two of intense hyperbabble. Anyway, the seven of us in Sammy’s van would be a tight fit, but we would bear that cross with glee, considering the lumber already upon our shoulders. It was agreed that two vehicles, while more comfortable, would be too difficult to coordinate with precision, not to mention without arousing any more suspicion than was necessary.    

With four stops planned for gas—the first stop being Baton Rouge, where we’d make a pit stop back at the Pad that Sammy and I shared to pick up a few of Sammy’s toys—it was going to be I-10 all the way through Texas to New Mexico. Then, at Las Cruces, north on I-25 all the way to Santa Fe. Over twelve hundred miles of fast-paced driving in all. From Santa Fe, we would get the lowdown on how best to approach our target in Los Alamos, parts of which could be damn near inaccessible to most civilians according to Guthal—who knew such things, thanks to his years out at China Lake. We could, within reason, employ either his or Tal’N’s security clearance if things got too sticky, but only if my persuasive voice tricks couldn’t get us where we wanted to go. If I didn’t knock myself silly trying to pull them off, that is.

As I mentioned before, now, since the reintegration of The Weird, which had merged our former heroic selves on SenZar with our current less than heroic selves here on Earth, I once more possessed the knowledge and the magicks of a spellsinging Master Bard. I was, however, simply a novice once more when it came to how to properly employ those abilities. To invoke a bizarre analogy, it was like suddenly getting the brain capacity of an Albert Einstein, but then not being able to use it all until you’d first brushed up on all of your basic arithmetic, physics, and quantum mechanics. A tabula rasa of the soul with but the barest of smudges beneath to guide me, as it were. Time, that absurd abstraction, would be the telling factor in my rehabilitation. A rehabilitation which, for some strange reason, seemed to be a bit retarded compared to that of my companions.

Second, we decided that we had to disguise ourselves. 

Disguise ourselves really meant disguise Zaar. The rest of us were marginally normal, able to pass as humans in a casual inspection, although not by careful scrutiny. Zaar, though—with his blue skin, towering height, and four arms—was quite out. Quite. Thankfully, we had most of our band gear here at the Teale House, and the elements had conspired to give us the perfect alibi. With all of the dreary, rainy weather that we were experiencing — and with all the unseasonable monsoon-like weather sweeping through the southwest, according to CNN, which had suddenly flickered back into cable umbilical life — one of Zaar’s voluminous black leather trench coats did the trick for him. That, some gloves, some shades, and one of his old, worn out fedoras, that is. It made Ol’ Poppa Luther look like some kind of extremely dangerous pimp. But no one mentioned this to him for fear that he would too much relish playing the role.  

Realizing how cool Zaar looked, though, each one of us—with the sole exception of Sigil, who was still hovering somewhere in La La Land—managed to change into something more concealing; something along the same darker lines of fashion as Zaar’s gangsta trench coat and shades. We had enough band gear to replace our own battle-damaged goods and provide everyone with a new set of wicked clothes. Long black leather trench coats. Dark shades. Black leather boots. The change of attire made us seem like some sort of road company version of Spy vs. Spy. Sigil, who probably eschewed such a drastic wardrobe change, assured us in broken, sleepy words—after being carefully prodded into semiconsciousness by Daring Mr. Bard, who feared no magickal trap that might suddenly flare into life and incinerate him—that no mortal being could see him as anything other than a middle-aged, nondescript, yet well-dressed man. That was but one of his many permanent alterations on this world, which only lent credence as to how drained he must really be in the Power Department, as such glamours cost dearly to maintain without a power focus of some sort to provide the energy of the enchantment. No wonder he was dying! All that energy for those awesome leathers!

Third, according to Tal’N’s most ardent wishes, we determined that we had to arm ourselves. To the veritable tooth and nail.

Each one of us knew how to shoot. Growing up here in Louisiana, the Sportsman’s Paradise, did have its advantages, after all. So guns were a definite, especially since the Mokarr cheated and used magickally augmented armor and obsidium swords that could, if swung with enough force, slice through reinforced concrete. While Guthal, Zaar, and I were competent marksmen, able to hold our own with most of the local club shooters, Sammy and Samantha were expert marksmen, qualifying with both rifle and pistol on the range. Sammy had even polished his prodigious talents with some personal range training up at LSU with a certain middle-aged marksman who had won her fame at the Olympics a few decades ago. Samantha, who shot only about as often as I did, had the eye. And she wasn’t very shy about rubbing it in whenever she’d do her Mel Gibson imitation and make little Happy Faces around my off-center target shots. Tal’N was, of course, a SEAL, which left no doubt as to how good he was. This meant, much to my delight, that he could shoot Happy Faces around Samantha’s Happy Faces if he really wanted to.

So, needless to say, the idea that we should pull a Rambo maneuver on the bastard Mokarr and show up at Los Alamos brimming with firepower was greeted with tightened, slamming fists. Besides, cheating—in this case, employing some nifty Terran techno toys instead of just our predictable SenZar magickal toys—was fun. 

It was decided after a moment of careful consideration that we would raid Sammy’s gun hoard—those toys that I had earlier mentioned—and equip ourselves there. It just wouldn’t do to raid a gun store, as Lord Valthrustra probably had goons on our trail even now who were watching our every move. Besides, it wouldn’t be wise to turn Sammy loose in such a tempting hoard environment with his new Mad Sam Sprunge talents. No, Sammy’s secret stash would do just fine—even though the thought of snifing was tempting, as his knowing smile let everyone know in so many soundless words. His secret hoard would also supply us with a couple of hand-to-hand weapons which, if not nearly so effective as our soon-to-be-gained enchanted ones, could do the job in close combat if it came down to it.

Fourth, we raided the bedrooms for blankets and pillows, as we planned to catch up on our sleep during the long ride to Los Alamos. Always considerate of such things, Samantha stuffed her hiking backpack with a variety of medicinal goodies, such as deodorant and toilet paper, as well as a wallet filled with greenbacks and plastic, just in case we needed some of the Teale’s considerable financial power on our long dark journey. As we had already discovered, there was no need for showers, as Sigil’s Weird had cleansed us in both body and spirit, even to the point of healing our numerous cuts, scrapes, and bruises from the Jackson Square encounter with Vash Gar and his Mokarr henchmen. The bloodstains on the sofa, the rug and the floor, though, would have to wait until we got back. We were, after all, heroes and not maids.

Still, no amount of magickal body healing could soothe the raging fires in our brains, where two lifetimes of memories were struggling to mesh themselves together into some sort of cohesive new pattern of personality. Our brains had to somehow catch up with that overwhelming, enormous data deluge, or madness would soon beckon. And sleep, we decided, was always the best medicine for sorting out such difficulties. 

Or so we hoped. It wasn’t as if we had much telling experience in this Anshadar business, after all. It wasn’t an everyday experience to wake up from a nightmare, only to find out that it was still going on, no matter how much you kept pinching yourself and wishing that you’d wake up again, only this time for real. As ever was the way with the Stars, we’d just have to find out these things for ourselves. If we all managed to live that long, that is.

Almost in afterthought, Samantha left her dear puppy Lobo a good week’s supply of puppy chow in his feeder, along with a brief but wolfishly fierce hug goodbye. Then, gathering the goodies and Sigil’s comatose form, we piled into the van in bitter silence, Apprehension our friend.

It should be noted that, in our haste to fly off and save the world, our merry little band of psychopaths almost forgot to bring Sigil along with us. Almost left him on the floor of the garage all by his lonesome. Bad karma, that. And, it should be noted as well, that Mr. Oatmeal Brain, in his haste to get the hell outta Dodge, even forgot to bring along a guitar to help him work his spellsinging charms. Bad, bad karma, that.

Thus prepared, we said goodbye to our beloved City of Sin, New Orleans—and to our former mortal lives. No one brought up saying goodbye to our families and friends, though.

Not that we managed to forget about that. No. To them, we were already dead.

Such was our way on the Roads to Madness.

Death could do that to a soul.

CHAPTER 2: The Techno Toys of Doom

We were barreling down the rain grey I-10 by 6:00 AM. Sammy the Sleepless was at the wheel, and Sigil the Sleeping was nestled comfortably in the backseat of the crowded van, Samantha’s silken, black comforter his shroud. Tal’N the Vigilant sat across from Sammy the Sleepless in the front passenger seat, calmly sharpening his Phrobis combat knife with a whetstone, an occasional glance at the road ahead his only other movement. Zaar and Guthal, the Snoring and the Grumbling, respectively, shared the floor, relatively comfortable on a massive cache of blankets and pillows, with Guthal tucked between Sigil’s seat and the seat that Samantha and I shared. Guthal was perpendicular to Zaar, who stretched nearly the full length of the floor of the van.

There was no punk rock music blaring this time, only the steady, redundant thunk-thip of the windshield wipers and the cave bear snores of Zaar and Guthal. I silently thanked the Gods of Suspension that Sammy’s MacPherson struts and the hum of the finely tuned engine were keeping the normal sounds of the early morning traffic at bay. I only wished that I could get some sleep. Heal my brain, and all that good stuff.  

I turned to Samantha for solace.

Noting her closed eyes, I deferred to brooding silence, cursing myself that I was still so weak, so mortal, despite being now what Sigil had said about being The Stuff of Dreams. Well, it wasn’t very proper to call us The Stuff of Dreams if we couldn’t even nod off to have a dream, now was it? Not no, but hell no!

Oh, well, like the song says: I’ve gone too far to turn back now. 

The Roads to Madness beckoned to me now like the long-lost brother that it truly was.

We hit Baton Rouge by 6:45 AM, the first blazing leg of our hellride complete. In a few short minutes, mostly nail biting ones as Sammy ignored one rule of the road after another, we were safely in the garage of our pad, stretching our legs and yawning.

All right, everybody! Sammy yelled, his high-pitched voice an annoying wake up call. Let’s get this show on the road! C’mon, C’mon! He was a bundle of boundless energy, up the stairs and into the house before any of us could even blink.

It was understood that Sigil was to continue resting, so we did not bother with waking him from his trance. Not that we could have even if we had tried. He was deep within himself now, focusing his power for the time to come in Los Alamos. So the rest of us, even the grouchy snoring bears, filed up the stairs behind the energetic Sammy and stormed into the Pad.

Stormed? Right! Some storm: Zaar immediately plowed into the den and sprawled out on the couch, evoking a curse from Guthal, who wound up flipping him off and then sleepily following us into Sammy’s mad scientist den, which Sammy had already kindly deactivated for the rest of us humanoid shamblers.

While Tal’N, Samantha, and I gathered around Sammy and his favorite antique display case—the one with the toys inside—Guthal stood before Sammy’s awesome computer walls, marveling with unabashed, sleepy awe at all of Sammy’s electronic goodies.

He’s got the NSA beat, guys! Guthal yawned, shaking his head in Computer Nerd disbelief. After but a moment of disbelief, though, Guthal woke up and saw the Light. Good lord! Is that a Cray XMP I see over there in the corner, Sammy? Hehnnnn? Izzit izzit izzit? Guthal foamed as he mashed his hands together in hoard-glee. If he wasn’t awake before, he damn sure was now.

No way, José! Sammy snickered as he unlocked the hoary, oaken case, its glass doors rattling slightly. Well, not entirely, anyway. It’s just an old, broken down Cray YMP that I’m reconditioning for some buddies of mine over at Pennington. Seems that they trust me more than their normal techs when it comes to doing things right, he giggled, giving Guthal a wink, which Guthal enviously returned. Now—to respond to that hyperbolic NSA remark, Guthal—does this really look like the basement of Fort Meade? Do you actually see two acres of Crays in here?

Well...

Well, maybe, one day, Sammy finished for his computer buddy. Then, with a small complaint of creaking wood, the display case opened, revealing its once-forbidden contents. Feast yer eyes on that, me buckos! Sammy leered piratically.

And feast we did, bucko.

There, within the oaken confines of the upright display case, rested enough firepower to outfit a small assault force—which was precisely what was called for. Besides the M16A2 assault rifle and the Mossberg shotgun, there were also five nifty pistols; two of which unfortunately were quite useless to us, as they were matching antique flintlocks. Tal’N, his green eyes flickering with hoard-glee, quickly grabbed the Glock 9mm and passed it over to Samantha, who just as quickly stuffed the composite plastic pistol into her waiting Bahama Mama rucksack. Tal’N, still hoarding furiously, next fitted the bulky Stechkin 9mm automatic pistol into his belt, then passed the massive .45 long slide with laser sighting over to me.  

You can be the Terminator today, Tat, Tal’N said, flashing me a delirious grin.

Fuck you, asshole, I replied in Arnoldese as I sighted the heavy semiautomatic, feeling the cold metal in my hands. Drawing a laser-lit bead on a copy of one of Sammy’s innumerable comic books—Amazing Spider Man #129, I think—I sighed with satisfaction as the red laser light fixed upon the crosshairs displayed prominently upon the cover. Now, at least with the laser sighting, I could hang with the Gun Range Loons. Now, just like the lunatic on the cover of that comic book, I too could punish the guilty. Sorta.

While I was pondering my deranged fixations, Sammy was busy working on a combination lock at the base of the towering display case, muttering something nasty under his breath the whole while. He was going all out, for one of his hoarding ways, letting us in on his sanctum sanctorum, his holy of holies. Of course, because I was his roommate and best friend, I knew what we were about to see. Still, that knowledge did nothing to alleviate my anticipation—for all that I knew, Sammy may have restocked his inventory with even more goodies in the month or two since I’d last peered within. 

With a sudden twist of the combination lock in his dexterous hands, Sammy had the false floor of the case open, revealing to the world his toys. There, within the humidity controlled confines of the coffin-sized hidey-hole, was a collection of mostly illegal death-dealing technological nightmares. From their sacred resting places he reverently pulled them: a mammoth .454 Casull revolver and its complement of five custom speedloaders that held elephant-smashing 315 grain bullets; a Heckler & Koch MP5K-PDW submachinegun fitted with one of Sammy’s customized sound suppressors that made Tal’N chortle with glee; a Micro Uzi with ten spare magazines; a pair of PR-24 police batons, modern day polycarbonate tonfa with a kick; a vintage Thompson SMG with a fifty shot drum magazine; an AK-47 with a barrel-mounted BG-15 grenade launcher, along with three Russian-labeled grenades in a transparent plastic carrying case; and a true beauty, a Barrett .50 caliber to which was mounted a pint-sized, Sammy-customized version of a military-grade thermal acquisition system. With its 12X magnification scope, you could see a rat a mile away in total darkness, and probably skrag it, too.

LT Michael Reese, USN, SEAL Team 6, looked like a kid at Christmas, holding as many of the weapons as he could without falling over.

Do you realize how illegal some of these things are, Sammy? The SEAL asked the Hoarder Supreme incredulously, knowing fully well that Sammy already knew precisely how illegal most of them were in the hands of civilians.

So? Sammy replied, confused. Mine.

Uhh, guys? How are we going to carry all of this stuff? Samantha inquired as she fit the Casull, the grenades and the PR-24s into her rucksack. 

I’ve got an idea, I said, smirking. Zaar! Get your big ass in here!

As Tal’N reluctantly set down the guns, Zaar stumbled into Sammy’s hideout, his bleary jet eyes carefully scanning the room for any trick that Sammy might have in store for him. I thought, at first, that he was going to miss all of the neat toys, so intent was his paranoid scrutiny. But, as usual, there was a method to his madness. He made a